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It was naive for the White House to believe that a speech in Cairo and mostly cheerleading from the side lines would be sufficient to protect U.S. interests in the region over the long term.

Lack of economic freedom is the single greatest shortfall in most of the Middle East and North Africa The U.S. has done about zero to develop a serious action plan to promote economic freedom.

On the security front by soft-peddling the Israeli alliance, running away from Iraq, playing rope-a-dope with Iran, and remaining largely a distant observer of the march of Islamist extremism across the Sahal, the White House has done little to curb the instability sweeping the region.

The president could make 180-degree turn on his Middle East policies - that won't likely do much in the near term to quiet the Arab street but in the long run it would help make North Africa and the Middle East more likely to be places where justice, peace, and prosperity flourished and where U.S. interests would be better served.

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